Berry Farmers Staying 'True to the Blue'

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It seemed like a unique choice when Russ and Lynn Giesbrecht decided to plant blueberries on their 10 acres in rural west Abbotsford in 1986. Back then, blueberries certainly weren’t the flourishing crop in the valley they are now. The community was very much the raspberry capital, but leading the way into something new didn’t scare the newly married couple. 

“We got a consultant from the Ministry of Agriculture,” says Lynn. “Based on the soil, he suggested blueberries. We were one of the few to plant them back then.”

Now, walking the site and reminiscing, the 4.5 acres of Bluecrop berries are still the variety of choice for Lynn. She takes care of the planning and farming duties, bringing Russ in to fertilize the field as needed and spread sawdust every few years. He has his own full-time job as a self-employed carpenter and restored the beautiful 110-year-old heritage house that helped the couple fall in love with the property. 

“We are focusing on that,” she says. “The heritage farm and heritage blueberry. We like the Bluecrop variety. We think it’s the best in the valley.”

Bluecrop matures later than some of the newer varieties, but Lynn feels the taste and size of the berries more than makes up for it being later in the season.

Russ is also a chicken farmer and added barns that accommodate three 50,000 Taiwanese chicken (Loong Kong chicken) flocks each year, grown for Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry. The barns take up two and a half acres that had previously also been in blueberries. The transition was fine by Lynn who says managing the four and half acres of blueberries is more than enough for her.

“Farming back then was so simple,” she explains of berry growing in the 1980s compared to today. “Now there is paperwork. It’s just way more complicated.”

Part of the complexity is being enrolled and certified in the CanadaGAP Program. While the audits of the program prove to customers that RussLynn follows strict food safety protocols, following the program requires a lot of tracking, reporting and data entry. Lynn understands the need for the program and appreciates the safety measures it ensures for customers, but it’s a lot of extra work for a small farm. 

Part of that reporting includes making note of Lynn’s approach to a more sustainable farm. 

“We do not use hard sprays or hard pesticides. We’re closer to what is used in organics,” she explains. “But, we don’t want to have the little wormies in our berries.” 

Unfortunately, spotted wing drosophila is a bigger problem in Bluecrop than in other varieties, so spraying is a must. 

Like many farmers, Lynn makes sure that when Russ sprays, he’s using the minimal amount for efficacy and controls are applied as recommended, away from the time of picking. Because the berries are next to the house and the family has always eaten more of the crop than the average family, keeping sprays minimal is essential. It’s the air they breathe, the water they drink from the property’s well, and the tasty blue berries they consume and share with others. 

“There is the traceability. We write it all down and we monitor so that they are only picking when it’s safe to pick,” she says. 

The blueberries aren’t the couple’s main income. Instead, the crop provides a few of life’s extras, so in a good year they might be able to put money away to build an outbuilding they’ve been dreaming of.

“We like the lifestyle, the farming lifestyle,” she says. “We’ve had many good years. If you could see my husband on his tractor, he wouldn’t ever have to make money to be a farmer. He just loves farming.”

The lifestyle ensured the couple’s three children grew up in an ideal setting. A treehouse perched high in the forested area to the east of the blueberries continues to look out over the berry rows. 

“There were a lot of sleepovers in the treehouse,” she says of her kids. “They all know how to work. They all helped.” 

When they were too young to be in the field all day, but old enough to pick berries, they had to be in the field with her long enough to pick one 15-pound pail. 

Lynn sells half of the crop on-farm and half to Driediger Farms for processing. They’ve built frozen storage as well so that frozen berries can be sold direct from the farm year-round. When RussLynn was founded, there was a blueberry co-op that berries were sold through - similar to how BC Fresh is a family-farm owned marketing agency for produce - but that blueberry co-op is long gone now.

Berries are hand-picked and if she has about 10 or 15 pickers, she’s fine to get the berries off at harvest. Of course, as with all farmers, COVID caused a few labour challenges. Lynn’s always counted on friends and family to help as pickers, but as the kids grow up and move on to other things, her pool of pickers has grown smaller. She does have a contractor that can bring in pickers if needed and also relies on a contractor to manage the pruning in the winter. 

The RussLynn U-pick section within the field continued to be popular in 2021. 

“We have a lot of people that come out for that. It probably totals one acre of our field,” Lynn says of U-pick. “Our rows are nine feet apart. We could put people in a row and know they were [physically distanced] apart.”

Because she’s always assigned people to a row when doing U-pick, there was no need to change the routine already in place. 

With 35 berry-growing seasons behind her, Lynn is no newbie to the industry. Certainly, four-and-a-half acres isn’t the largest blueberry field in Abbotsford, but she brings a lot of knowledge to what she does. Lynn was on the board of the BC Blueberry Council for 12 years and has attended the Pacific Agriculture Show annually to ensure she keeps learning. She has connections with many of the local growers and believes it’s important to stay up-to-date as the exponential growth in blueberry plantings has occurred. 

“When we first started farming, we were just blueberry farmers. Now we’re business people,” she says. “For many, that’s a plus. For me, I just like being a farmer, but I’ve risen to the challenge. It’s very much a global market. That’s changed.”

The long-term goal for Russ and Lynn is to stay put and she will farm blueberries and he will farm chickens.